


WPaRG Intermission: Denahi in the Lion's Den

by chelonianmobile, MultiFanGirlWickedPony, Writearoundchic



Series: WPaRG [8]
Category: Brother Bear (2003), Disney - All Media Types, The Lion King (1994)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Implied Child Murder, Molestation, Other, Parent/Child Incest, Physical Abuse, Poverty, Suicidal Thoughts, inbreeding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:00:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24090970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chelonianmobile/pseuds/chelonianmobile, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MultiFanGirlWickedPony/pseuds/MultiFanGirlWickedPony, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writearoundchic/pseuds/Writearoundchic
Summary: Zira's terrible parenting, as witnessed by Denahi.
Series: WPaRG [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1665667
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	WPaRG Intermission: Denahi in the Lion's Den

“You live _here_?”

Denahi _(no longer the Wiseman outside the Palace’s walls)_ has pulled his car in front of one of the most dilapidated buildings that he has ever laid eyes on. It ought to be condemned, really. Its roof sags, its walls are covered more by mildew than they are crumbling yellow paint, and the street around it has been strewn with broken bottles and other articles of trash better left unnamed.

“Yep,” the Heiress says from the back seat. “One-one-three Outland Avenue, fourth floor, apartment thirteen-a. That’s what Nuka says.”

“Alright, then, let’s get you inside before your brother wakes up and finds you gone.”

“He won’t wake up,” the Heiress says, but she swings her feet from the car and onto the cracked pavement of the poorly-maintained parking lot. “He’s a deep sleeper.”

Denahi sighs. “Let’s hope you’re right, kid.”

She isn’t, not by a long shot.

He knocks one time at the door before it comes flying open and he is faced with a ragged-haired, wild-eyed child clutching a squalling baby in his far-too-thin arms. The boy he knows as Sire of Termites looks on the verge of either tears or murder - and perhaps both at the same time - when he catches sight of the Heiress’ tiny form.

“VITANI!” he yells out, dropping to one knee, startling the infant and causing it to bawl even harder. “Where were you?! Why didn’t you wake me?! You scared the shit out of me, what is wrong with you?!”

“I thought you were tired!” his sister fires back. “You were up late with Kovu, so I let you nap! It’s not my fault that he cries so much.”

“So it’s mine, then?”

“Mother says that if you tried a little harder then he wouldn’t be so bad.”

“I’m trying as hard as I possibly can, if you don’t like it then why don’t you take care of him and see how you like it?”

“He’s _your_ baby!”

Denahi watches in horror as the floodgates open and the not-even-teenager crumples, his eyes welling up and his throat letting loose a wail that is louder than any coming from the child in his arms, and twice as painful to listen to.

“Kid…” The Wiseman reaches out a hand, unsure of how to proceed. “Hey. Hey… it’s, um… it’s… alright.”

But it isn’t.

The girl stills beside him, looking on the scene with a sad sort of familiarity. “Nuka?” she says, brushing past Denahi. “Nuka, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry, please don’t cry.”

This is the tenderest he has seen the Heiress be with anyone, and yet he cannot find even a little beauty in this moment. Not when he sees the way the boy’s hands have curled around the child in his lap.

“I think,” Denahi says cautiously, “that you’re holding your… holding _him_ a little too tightly.”

“He looks just like my father,” Sire says, between gasps, as if from very far away. “More than I do. He looks like my father, and my mother already loves him more than she could ever love me… what if, when he gets older, she picks him instead? What if she stops?”

“Don’t you want that?” his sister says. “You always get sad when Mother yells at you… or does the other stuff…”

Sire - _Nuka_ \- just cries even harder, his wails intermingling with those of the infant clutched tight against his chest.

“Kid, you’ve got to calm down,” Denahi says as gently as he can, trying to remove the screaming infant from his (his what’s?) grasp. “Deep breaths. You need to calm down, okay? You’re going to hurt the baby.”

“Kovu,” the Heiress interjects. “His name is Kovu.”

“Right, Kovu, then. You need to give him to me, you aren’t thinking right and you might hurt him by accident.”

“I DON’T CARE!” The tearful scream sends both Denahi and his younger sister flinching back.

“You don’t mean that…”

Fear burns like ice in his blood.

“I… I might… I don’t know what I mean… I don’t know what to do… what am I supposed to _do_ with him?”

“Well, you look after your sister, don’t you? He’s just like tha-”

“No he’s _not_! Don’t pretend this is the same. I’m not his brother… not really… but I’m not ready to be a dad.”

_Denahi knows that he’s right-_

_-but he has to say something._

“I know, kid. I know, and I’m sorry.”

“I don’t love him,” Nuka admits. “I can’t love him. It’s just like how it is with Mother and Father and me!”

“Don’t you ever say that.” Denahi’s eyes are blazing now, his hand wrapped around the whole of the boy’s forearm. “You aren’t anything like her, you understand?”

“I’m worse, then. I… my father, he… um... You know my father killed his own brother? That’s what he did to get where he got in his life.”

The man grips the boy’s shoulders tightly with both hands.

“What are you talking about?”

“I can’t sleep. I can’t _think_ , and Mother wants me to stay home and take care of him. Father says you can’t accomplish anything if you don’t go to school. I can’t stay here forever, I have to make something of myself… I can’t do that if I have to be a… I can’t do any of that if I have _him_.”

“ _You need to give me the baby_.”

“What if he gets older and, and Mother wants him the way she wants me? What good am I then? I need her to need me around for something, what if she throws me out?”

Denahi pries open one arm, trying to handle the child so as not to let his head slip, as he works at the other.

“And I feel awful for thinking that, because I’m his dad, shouldn’t I be worried about him? I should be protecting him from those things, instead of hoarding Mother all to myself… but I hate him. I can’t care about him the way I do Tani, and I need to think of her too and maybe we’d be better off if….”

Denahi pulls Kovu from Nuka’s arms and stares at the boy, terrified of what else will spill from his mouth.

“… we aren’t ever going to get out of here.” He sweeps out his hand, gesturing around them at the filthy, roach-infested apartment with boxes of things that were once pieces of a much grander home.

Denahi takes it all in.

“I keep thinking about how much better it would be if I died… but they need me.”

“Kid, you can’t-”

“I’d be worried about leaving them behind, my mother wouldn’t like that.”

“I wouldn’t-”

“I wonder if we’d all end up where my uncle is if…” He trails off, but Denahi has no need for him to finish.

He understands the meaning behind those words, perfectly.

Without warning the boy begins to scratch at his scalp, tearing out greasy black strands, until blood begins to trickle down from his hairline.

“Nuka…?” The little girl reaches out to her older brother with one tiny hand. She is remarkably calm, given her age and the circumstances.

This is not at all reassuring.

Nuka opens his arms and the child goes into them, never fearing his words or the manic way in which he moves. He clutches her tight, but unlike Kovu, she does not protest, merely going limp as a ragdoll in her brother’s embrace. Denahi is worried the older boy will hurt her, but then the girl the group has dubbed the Heiress begins to speak.

“It’s okay,” she whispers. “Mother isn’t here now.”

“She’ll come back,” he chokes out, his left cheek pressed up against her right one, tears rolling from his face onto hers. “She always comes back.”

The gun hidden away in Denahi’s jacket weighs heavy against his chest.

“Pack your bags,” he says briskly, “and be quick about it, you kids are coming with me.”

Nuka releases his sister and stares up at the man as if he has grown a second head. “What?”

“You heard me, you’re going to stay with me tonight, so you’d better get your stuff together. Now hop to it.”

“I-I can’t go with you. With Father gone, Mother’s been… I… she… she needs me.”

He can almost hear the sound of a trigger clicking, of a gun being fired; he can hear the noise of a screaming bullet.

“Blondie?” The man turns his attention toward the girl that Nuka called Vitani. “Do you know where his and the baby’s things are?”

She nods. “Yuh-huh.”

“Good. I need you to go get your brothers’ clothes for me, and anything else you think would be important, okay?”

She says nothing, only turns and retreats from the room. The sound of her feet on the rough wood floor echoes through the tiny apartment.

Denahi and Nuka lock eyes.

“I won’t go with you.” The boy is trying to sound defiant, but his voice is weak and he is shaking too much to stand.

“I’ll carry you out if you won’t walk.” Denahi bounces Kovu in his arms. “You can’t stay here. Someone should have done this ages ago.”

“This is kidnapping. It’s illegal.”

“So is everything she did to you.” The words fly out before he can stop them and he regrets saying anything even before he sees the boy on the floor flinch.

“You don’t know my mother… she loves me. She loves me so much.”

“… Sure, kid.”

“She’s just stressed out, you know, with… Father and stuff.”

“How old are you?”

The boy stares up at him, caught completely off guard. “What?”

“Just answer the question, how old are you? Fourteen? Thirteen?”

“I turned twelve two weeks ago…”

His eyes drift shut for a moment and he takes a deep breath. “Fuck, kid, you aren’t even a teenager.”

“Why is that-”

“Because you come to the Palace every week!”

“Well… yeah, but that’s just because-”

“No. No, you don’t get to hide from this and go on thinking your mommy loves you, or that this-” his throws out an arm at the squalor around them, “-that _any_ of this is normal. I won’t let you do that to yourself. You’re the one who comes to the Palace. You decided to do that on your own, right?”

Nuka does not meet his gaze.

“Come on, kid, you know it’s wrong. You know what she’s been doing to you is wrong.”

Denahi cringes as he notices that the child in front of him has begun to cry once again.

“So…” he takes breaths, trying to calm and steel himself all at once, “what’s it gonna be? Are you going to walk out with me on your own or do I need to drag you out of here.”

“… If I go with you is it still kidnapping?”

That gets a laugh.

“Probably,” the older man snorts. “We’d better get going, now where’s your sis-”

The girl with grubby hands and dirty hair stands in the doorway, lugging an obscenely-sized duffle bag behind her.

“I’m ready,” she chirps, seemingly unfazed by the exchange that has just occurred. “Are we going to your house, Mister Wiseman? Is your aunt really a beauty queen?”

“You’re gonna stay with me for a little while until we can figure out something permanent,” Denahi explains. “Where’s your brother’s car seat?”

“Nuka’s too big for a car seat.”

“He means the termite’s, dumbass.”

“Mother says not to call him that! And _heyyyyy_!”

“Cool it,” Denahi grunts, “so is there a car seat or not?”

“That would be a ‘not’,” Nuka quips. “I usually just hold him on my lap.”

“You can’t do that! Don’t you know how unsafe that is?!”

“… Yes.”

The ice returns to Denahi’s veins.

“Okay… okay… um, maybe if we’re careful then the Hei- erm, _Vitani_ can hold-”

_“Kenai loves me, he loves me not; he loves me, he loves me n-”  
“Shut up, Denahi!”  
“That’s not very lovey dovey, lover boy.”  
“I said shut up! It’s not funny!”  
“That's not very looooving.”  
“Cut it out, you two. I’m trying to dr-”_

“I’ll get a car seat.” The man’s eyes are glazed as he looks at the children in front of him. “Vitani, do you think you can watch him?”

He means the baby, but the girl nods, and bounces up to her older brother.

“I’m in charge! Now you’ve gotta do what I say.”

“I will be right back, got it? Don’t move.”

He runs; through one parking lot and then another and through the aisle of a run-down mega-mart, he runs.

The whole ordeal cannot take more than twenty minutes, but when he returns to the lot of mangled asphalt he finds two children waiting there; an infant with tearful eyes, and a toddler with yellow hair. Kovu is still crying, but the girl who holds him looks very very afraid.

His stomach lurches.

“Where’s your brother?”

The girl bites her lip, and clutches the baby a little tighter. “Mother’s home,” she whispers, “she… uh, she found the bag… she knew we were gonna run away and now she’s mad.”

A key is thrown to the ground and Denahi’s feet pound against the pavement. “Get in the car and lock the doors! Don’t let anyone in, you got that?” He does not wait to see if she does.

The door to the apartment is locked. This does not stop the sound of screaming from spilling into the hall. Denahi can hear Nuka shrieking through the walls. He can hear the voice of a woman, yelling something just beneath the child’s pained wailing. There is the sound of creaking springs and of flesh hitting flesh.

Denahi sees red.

The door is flimsy and poorly attached. It creaks as he throws himself against it. If this were the movies it would break. Denahi is a man fueled by rage and adrenaline and the door is thin, made of lifeless gray wood. It should splinter beneath him, but he has not eaten properly in months and has used chemical means of forgetting for just a little longer than that.

The door creaks and moans against his weight, but Denahi cannot break it down, and the sound in the apartment grows louder all the while.

Suddenly all noise cuts out.

The door falls to the ground with a clatter.

The duffle bag lies discarded on the floor and all around it are smears of red. A woman with sharp features kneels on the ground, and beside her is Nuka’s crumpled form. His skin is a mess of black and purple, all of it brushed over with red. His lip has split in two places and, by the looks of it, more than a few teeth have been knocked out of place. There is a bloody puddle beneath his head, soaking into his shaggy hair.

His clothing is askew.

Denahi moves on autopilot, rushing toward the child on the floor, shoving the woman away from him. She stares, her eyes glazed and horrified.

“Nuka…” She whispers.

“What did you do to him?!” Denahi spits. “What the fuck did you do?!”

“I didn’t mean… I didn’t think he’d…” She stares dazedly at the boy, looking straight through the man. “… Is he dead?”

It is now that realizes that the child in his arms is barely breathing, he feels for a pulse that is only just there.

_No._

Terror closes in. He fumbles for his cell phone, his grip on Nuka never wavering.

“… Mother?”

“Kid, I need you to try and stay awake for me, alright?”

“I… I’m… sorry… Mother… I’m… sorry…”

Denahi hushes him as best he can, and speaks lighting into the phone’s receiver. An address, a demand, a few curses. Within moments he can hear the sound of sirens.

“I hope they lock you up to _rot_ ,” he glares daggers at the dazed woman, “you’re disgusting.”

“Nuka…” She seems genuinely saddened at her son’s state.

He does not know if it should make him more or less enraged.

He will think long and hard about this for the hours that follow.

There are footfalls on the staircase and suddenly the room fills with more churning bodies than it was built to hold. There are questions and detectives, and handcuffs slapped across the strange woman’s wrists. There is an address, and a stretcher and the sound of sirens once again wailing into the night as an ambulance peels away from the building and off down the road.

“Where’s Nuka?” the little girl asks when he returns to his car.

For a moment he doesn’t know what to say.

“ _Where’s Nuka_?” she demands, her voice stronger now.

Denahi realizes something then; Vitani may not be anything at all like his younger brother, but looking at her now, so full of fear and confusion and fury and with a little brother of her own to look out for, he doesn’t see a girl standing there.

_“He’s awake!”  
“Someone call Doctor Sweet!”  
“How are you feeling, sweetheart?”  
“My… my brother he was driving… is he okay?!”  
“Son, I’m-”  
“Where’s Sitka?! Where’s my brother?!”_

“I’m so sorry.”

It is _himself_ he finds when he looks down at the child in front of him.


End file.
